Contextualizing the Genes Altered in Bladder Neoplasms in Pediatric and Teen Patients Allows Identifying Two Main Classes of Biological Processes Involved and New Potential Therapeutic Targets

Research on bladder neoplasms in pediatric and teen patients (BNPTP) has described 21 genes, which are variously involved in this disease and are mostly responsible for deregulated cell proliferation. However, due to the limited number of publications on this subject, it is still unclear what type of relationships there are among these genes and which are the chances that, while having different molecular functions, they i) act as downstream effector genes of well-known pro- or anti- proliferative stimuli and/or interplay with biochemical pathways having oncological relevance or ii) are specific and, possibly, early biomarkers of these pathologies. A Gene Ontology (GO)-based analysis showed that these 21 genes are involved in biological processes, which can be split into two main classes: cell regulation-based and differentiation/development-based. In order to understand the involvement/overlapping with main cancer-related pathways, we performed a meta-analysis dependent on the 189 oncogenic signatures of the Molecular Signatures Database (OSMSD) curated by the Broad Institute. We generated a binary matrix with 53 gene signatures having at least one hit; this analysis i) suggests that some genes of the original list show inconsistencies and might need to be experimentally re- assessed or evaluated as biomarkers (in particular, ACTA2) and ii) allows hypothesizing that important (proto)oncogenes (E2F3, ERBB2/HER2, CCND1, WNT1, and YAP1) and (putative) tumor suppressors (BRCA1, RBBP8/CTIP, and RB1-RBL2/p130) may participate in the onset of this disease or worsen the observed phenotype, thus expanding the list of possible molecular targets for the treatment of BNPTP

How many Observations are Enough? Knowledge Distillation for Trajectory Forecasting

Accurate prediction of future human positions is an essential task for modern video-surveillance systems. Current state-of-the-art models usually rely on a "history" of past tracked locations (e.g., 3 to 5 seconds) to predict a plausible sequence of future locations (e.g., up to the next 5 seconds). We feel that this common schema neglects critical traits of realistic applications: as the collection of input trajectories involves machine perception (i.e., detection and tracking), incorrect detection and fragmentation errors may accumulate in crowded scenes, leading to tracking drifts. On this account, the model would be fed with corrupted and noisy input data, thus fatally affecting its prediction performance.In this regard, we focus on delivering accurate predictions when only few input observations are used, thus potentially lowering the risks associated with automatic perception. To this end, we conceive a novel distillation strategy that allows a knowledge transfer from a teacher network to a student one, the latter fed with fewer observations (just two ones). We show that a properly defined teacher supervision allows a student network to perform comparably to state-of-the-art approaches that demand more observations. Besides, extensive experiments on common trajectory forecasting datasets highlight that our student network better generalizes to unseen scenarios

ClusterFix: A Cluster-Based Debiasing Approach without Protected-Group Supervision

The failures of Deep Networks can sometimes be ascribed to biases in the data or algorithmic choices. Existing debiasing approaches exploit prior knowledge to avoid unintended solutions; we acknowledge that, in real-world settings, it could be unfeasible to gather enough prior information to characterize the bias, or it could even raise ethical considerations. We hence propose a novel debiasing approach, termed ClusterFix, which does not require any external hint about the nature of biases. Such an approach alters the standard empirical risk minimization and introduces a per-example weight, encoding how critical and far from the majority an example is. Notably, the weights consider how difficult it is for the model to infer the correct pseudo-label, which is obtained in a self-supervised manner by dividing examples into multiple clusters. Extensive experiments show that the misclassification error incurred in identifying the correct cluster allows for identifying examples prone to bias-related issues. As a result, our approach outperforms existing methods on standard benchmarks for bias removal and fairness

Hepatocellular carcinoma with macrovascular invasion: Multimodality imaging features for the diagnosis

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is frequently associated with macrovascular invasion of the portal vein or hepatic veins in advanced stages. The accurate diagnosis of macrovascular invasion and the differentiation from bland non-tumoral thrombus has significant clinical and management implications, since it narrows the therapeutic options and it represents a mandatory con-traindication for liver resection or transplantation. The imaging diagnosis remains particularly challenging since the imaging features of HCC with macrovascular invasion may be subtle, espe-cially in lesions showing infiltrative appearance. However, each radiologic imaging modality may provide findings suggesting the presence of tumor thrombus rather than bland thrombus. The purpose of this paper is to review the current guidelines and imaging appearance of HCC with macrovascular invasion. Knowledge of the most common imaging features of HCC with macro-vascular invasion may improve the diagnostic confidence of tumor thrombus in clinical practice and help to guide patients’ management

Scoring pleurisy in slaughtered pigs using convolutional neural networks

Diseases of the respiratory system are known to negatively impact the profitability of the pig industry, worldwide. Considering the relatively short lifespan of pigs, lesions can be still evident at slaughter, where they can be usefully recorded and scored. Therefore, the slaughterhouse represents a key check-point to assess the health status of pigs, providing unique and valuable feedback to the farm, as well as an important source of data for epidemiological studies. Although relevant, scoring lesions in slaughtered pigs represents a very time-consuming and costly activity, thus making difficult their systematic recording. The present study has been carried out to train a convolutional neural network-based system to automatically score pleurisy in slaughtered pigs. The automation of such a process would be extremely helpful to enable a systematic examination of all slaughtered livestock. Overall, our data indicate that the proposed system is well able to differentiate half carcasses affected with pleurisy from healthy ones, with an overall accuracy of 85.5%. The system was better able to recognize severely affected half carcasses as compared with those showing less severe lesions. The training of convolutional neural networks to identify and score pneumonia, on the one hand, and the achievement of trials in large capacity slaughterhouses, on the other, represent the natural pursuance of the present study. As a result, convolutional neural network-based technologies could provide a fast and cheap tool to systematically record lesions in slaughtered pigs, thus supplying an enormous amount of useful data to all stakeholders in the pig industry

Regulation of microRNA during cardiomyocyte maturation in sheep.

BACKGROUND: There is a limited capacity to repair damage in the mammalian heart after birth, which is primarily due to the inability of cardiomyocytes to proliferate after birth. This is in contrast to zebrafish and salamander, in which cardiomyocytes retain the ability to proliferate throughout life and can regenerate their heart after significant damage. Recent studies in zebrafish and rodents implicate microRNA (miRNA) in the regulation of genes responsible for cardiac cell cycle progression and regeneration, in particular, miR-133a, the miR-15 family, miR-199a and miR-590. However, the significance of these miRNA and miRNA in general in the regulation of cardiomyocyte proliferation in large mammals, including humans, where the timing of heart development relative to birth is very different than in rodents, is unclear. To determine the involvement of miRNA in the down-regulation of cardiomyocyte proliferation occurring before birth in large mammals, we investigated miRNA and target gene expression in sheep hearts before and after birth. The experimental approach included targeted transcriptional profiling of miRNA and target mRNA previously identified in rodent studies as well as genome-wide miRNA profiling using microarrays. RESULTS: The cardiac expression of miR-133a increased and its target gene IGF1R decreased with increasing age, reaching their respective maximum and minimum abundance when the majority of ovine cardiomyocytes were quiescent. The expression of the miR-15 family members was variable with age, however, four of their target genes decreased with age. These latter profiles are inconsistent with the direct involvement of this family of miRNA in cardiomyocyte quiescence in late gestation sheep. The expression patterns of 'pro-proliferative' miR-199a and miR-590 were also inconsistent with their involvement in cardiomyocyte quiescence. Consequently, miRNA microarray analysis was undertaken, which identified six discrete clusters of miRNA with characteristic developmental profiles. The functions of predicted target genes for the miRNA in four of the six clusters were enriched for aspects of cell division and regulation of cell proliferation suggesting a potential role of these miRNA in regulating cardiomyocyte proliferation. CONCLUSION: The results of this study show that the expression of miR-133a and one of its target genes is consistent with it being involved in the suppression of cardiomyocyte proliferation, which occurs across the last third of gestation in sheep. The expression patterns of the miR-15 family, miR-199a and miR-590 were inconsistent with direct involvement in the regulation cardiomyocyte proliferation in sheep, despite studies in rodents demonstrating that their manipulation can influence the degree of cardiomyocyte proliferation. miRNA microarray analysis suggests a coordinated and potentially more complex role of multiple miRNA in the regulation of cardiomyocyte quiescence and highlights significant differences between species that may reflect their substantial differences in the timing of this developmental process

Uncommon localizations of hydatid cyst. Review of the literature

Introduction. Hydatid disease is an endemic anthropozoonosis with usual localization in liver and lungs. Rarely it localizes in uncommon sites as spleen, skeleton, kidney, brain, cardiac muscle, peritoneum, sub cutis. Complications of uncommon localizations are the same that for usual ones. Material and methods. Review of the literature on rare and atypical localization of hydatid cysts in soft tissues. Key-words used on Pub-Med [(echinococ OR hydatid) AND (soft tissue OR subcutaneous OR cutaneous)] without time limit. There were found 282 articles; 242 were excluded because of muscular or bone localizations. 40 were coherent. Results. Different variables are taken into account: age, sex, geographic area, anatomic localization of the cyst, dimension, symptoms, signs, mobility, blood exams and specific serological tests, imaging techniques for diagnosis, existing of septa in the structure, treatment, anaesthesia, spillage, neo-adjuvant and adjuvant treatment, follow-up period, recurrent lesions. Conclusion. It would be useful create an homogeneous and standardized collection of data of these rare and potentially life-threatening conditions in order to create guide-line of diagnostic and therapeutic process and create (or adopt) unique classification of the lesions

Y RNA: an overview of their role as potential biomarkers and molecular targets in human cancers

Y RNA are a class of small non-coding RNA that are largely conserved. Although their discovery was almost 40 years ago, their function is still under investigation. This is evident in cancer biology, where their role was first studied just a dozen years ago. Since then, only a few contributions were published, mostly scattered across different tumor types and, in some cases, also suffering from methodological limitations. Nonetheless, these sparse data may be used to make some estimations and suggest routes to better understand the role of Y RNA in cancer formation and characterization. Here we summarize the current knowledge about Y RNA in multiple types of cancer, also including a paragraph about tumors that might be included in this list in the future, if more evidence becomes available. The picture arising indicates that Y RNA might be useful in tumor characterization, also relying on non-invasive methods, such as the analysis of the content of extracellular vesicles (EV) that are retrieved from blood plasma and other bodily fluids. Due to the established role of Y RNA in DNA replication, it is possible to hypothesize their therapeutic targeting to inhibit cell proliferation in oncological patients

CT-GUIDED TRANSTHORACIC NEEDLE BIOPSY: ADVANTEGES IN HISTOPATHOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR TESTS

Aim: The present study aimed to demonstrate that computed tomography-guided transthoracic needle biopsy (TTNB) is a safe procedure that gives a more accurate pre-operative tissue diagnosis for peripheral lung nodules than transthoracic needle aspiration, obtaining suitable samples for molecular test in lung adenocarcinomas. Patients and methods: Between December 2016 and March 2018 at Thoracic Surgery Department of the University of Palermo - Policlinico Paolo Giaccone Hospital, TTNB was performed in 42 patients with computed tomography-detected peripheral lung nodules > 10 mm, using 16-18 -Gauge tru-Cut needles. Results: With TTNB, we have estimated an accuracy for tissue diagnosis of 97,6%. At the molecular test, EGFR overexpression and ALK mutation resulted positive for 12/23 patients with lung adenocarcinoma. Conclusion: TTNB has showed a low rate of complications and it is adoptable as standard diagnostic procedure for peripheral lung nodules

A novel microbiological approach to impact the aromatic composition of sour loquat beer

The growing interest in novel beer development determined the exploitation of unconventional yeasts isolated from novel ecological niches to generate unexplored sensory profiles. In recent years, there is an increasing interest in generating beers brewed with the addition of fruits. For the first time, Lachancea thermotolerans MNF105 and Saccharomyces cerevisiae MN113 isolated from manna, were tested as starter cultures to process loquat beer to improve the sensory profile. Innovatively, the yeast species L. thermotolerans was investigated for the production of sour fruit beer. Sour fruit beers produced with L. thermotolerans MNF105 were more balanced than the respective control, especially in terms of perceived acidity during sensory analysis. This could be due to the lower lactic acid production (0.49 g/L) compared to the respective control (1.74 g/L). The overall organoleptic investigation showed a preference for S. cerevisiae MN113 (TF1) isolated from manna. Experimental trials conducted with the selected strains demonstrated the absence of off-odour and off-flavour and improved aroma perception. Aldehydes and alcohols were the most abundant compounds emitted from the beers. S. cerevisiae MN113 and L. thermotolerans MNF105, manna related yeasts, showed great technological properties, representing promising starters for the production of fruit beer and sour fruit beer